


The End of Everything We Are

by knifeeyes



Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: AU, Grand Tour RPF, M/M, Top Gear RPF - Freeform, end of the world AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 16:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10033334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knifeeyes/pseuds/knifeeyes
Summary: James is a simple pianist, living in a small English town. When the world suddenly comes to a halt, he is the only one left. He may not be alone in figuring out what happened, and why he plays such a huge part in it.





	

On the days where he found himself with too much silence ringing in his ears, his mind would wander. When the air around him wasn’t filled with melodies and scraps of ink stained papers with words like _adagio_ and _allegro_ and _andante_ hastily scribbled on them, his brain would let him drift and sway to far off places, his thoughts erratic and varying. His eyes would close and colours would bloom behind them. Those were the days he wrote, when he would find the _brio_ that he often wished came easily to him, to his music. Some days, though, his colours bled to blacks and greys and the spirit would rush out of him before he could feel it happening. His mind took him to dark places on days like those, wandering to far off corners where dangerous thoughts lingered, cobwebs and dust turning them grey. He thought about death no more than any normal man did, but he thought about it often enough to make him shudder at the thought, the unknown circumstances of his unavoidable demise frightening enough to be keeping him up at night. He didn’t speak much about that, not wanting to alienate himself any further from the world than he voluntarily did already.

 

When he imagined how the world would end, he pictured a flash of white, blinding light and a sudden _nothingness._ Like a slate wiped clean, a room with a fresh coat of paint, he pictured the Earth as a flat, colourless plain. And he was fine with that, fine with his wild ideas because they wouldn’t, _couldn’t,_ happen. It was physically impossible. He was almost certain of that.

 

And so, the day the world had decided to end, he thought nothing of it. He woke to the sound of his alarm beeping in the insistent way it did at 7 am and his bladder pressing with an ever-growing urgency the longer he lay awake, blinking blurry eyes at his ceiling. He too thought nothing about the lack of birds chirping or wind blowing as he swiped at his bleary eyes, slinging his legs out of the bed and forcing himself to step into the shower. When his eyes had been successfully un-blurred, he’d very quickly realized that he’d forgotten to take his boxers off. Sighing as he peeled the soaking wet cotton shorts off, he threw them out of the shower, delighting slightly in the wet _plop!_ they made as they hit the tiles of his bathroom floor. Shower passing without any sort of event and his wet pants in the laundry, he dressed himself and headed downstairs, eagerly looking forward to his morning cuppa.

 

Again, no sounds could be heard from outside, only the high-pitched screech of his kettle as it boiled on his stove. He made his tea, and went to retrieve the paper from his porch. As he bent to pick it up, a distinct lack of, well… _anything_ , had him looking up and out across the street. No cars passed, no birds making sounds…nothing. He peered for a just a moment longer, brow beginning to furrow, before stepping back into his house and locking the door. A strange feeling had begun to creep its way down his back and under his skin as he walked back to the kitchen but he pushed it aside, chalking it up to strange dreams the night before. The rest of the morning passed without incident and before long, the sunlight cracking through his kitchen blinds and spilling orange light across his table had him checking his watch, seeing that it was nearly midday. He sighed, knowing he’d put work off for long enough.

 

After a brief moment of sitting and staring at the glossy piano in front of him, he again felt the stirrings of that strange, empty feeling he’d felt earlier. He wasn’t sure how he’d forgotten about it, let it easily slip his mind, but now it seemed that he was unable to, not until he opened his front door again and checked that all would be right outside. And so he did just that. Fingers clutching the cool brass doorknob as it swung inwards, he peeked outside once more, finding it in the exact same state he had seen it in that morning. No birds, no cars, no people. The emptiness intensified slightly, but enough so to have him sliding his slippers on and hesitantly heading outside.

 

It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm enough to be fine without a jacket, a rare occurrence in England. He figured people would be outside, doing whatever it is that they did, he wasn’t sure of _what exactly,_ but he knew they should be doing things. Peering up and down the street, he decided to head north, towards town. There had to be something going on there. He felt like a bit of an idiot to be honest, walking to town in his house shoes to do what? Stare at strangers going about their business, he supposed.

 

Making it in to town, he was met with just as much nothing as he’d seen from the comfort of his own home, and this was when the true panic set in. No people walked from shop to shop, no cars passed, just James, standing in the middle of the street in blue house shoes. The breeze that had appeared without him really noticing brushed through his hair, moving it gently against his neck and in his face. Turning so he was out of the wind, he noticed that the door to the post office was open slightly, and so he walked towards it. He was greeted by a distinct lack of people, and a distinct abundance of envelopes. A small black radio sat on the counter, and after a quick peek behind the desk to make sure he really was alone, he turned it on. The station it had been left on crackled with dead air, and he fiddled with the knob to find a station that worked. When he did, he was met with a tinny pre-recorded voice, the first one he’d heard all day.

 

_‘Attention listeners. This is a special announcement by the Emergency Measures Committee. Due to exceptional circumstances, radio and television has been brought under the control of the EMC, as per the Crisis Management Bill of 1984. We ask you stay indoors, and keep radios and televisions on at all times. Do not phone outside your local area. Do **not** interact with anything you see, people included. Do not panic, please remain calm. Stay tuned to this station for further information and updates.’_

When the message had finished playing, he stood there for a moment, staring at the radio. This had to be a joke, some wide scale practical joke that he wasn’t in on. Shaking his head as he headed outside, he saw that the doors to his local pub had been swung open, and so he made his way across the street and inside. It was slightly unnerving to be inside a place he knew to be full of loud people so often, the silence echoed loudly as he looked around. Everything was intact, left as it had been when it was cleaned the night before. No people sitting at tables, or in the loo, or even out back, just clear pint glasses and chalkboards on the wall with ‘ _Thursday Special! Pint and Fish and Chips $4’_ written neatly on them.

 

Wanting to be thorough, he headed upstairs. Again, he found a radio, a black plastic one behind the bar, and switched it on, only to be greeted with the same eerie voice telling him not to use the phone. This time, he listened to the message twice, slightly more conscious as to what the voice was saying. When it got to the part about not interacting with anything he saw, people included, he felt his blood go cold. He had missed that bit in his slightly delusional panicking the first the he heard the message. What the hell did that mean, anyway? _Anything he saw_? He grimaced slightly.

 

When he turned to survey his surroundings, actively deciding whether or not to attempt running back home in his slippers, he noticed a smoke trail coming from one of the ashtrays on the tables. Looking around quickly, he saw no one, and when he looked at the cigarette in question, it looked like it had been smoked half way and then squashed into the black bottom of the ash tray. Still slightly lit, it smoked itself out, the white tendrils rising up to the roof of the pub and disappearing.

 

A heavy blanket of panic had further descended upon him, making his uneasiness grow until it made him dizzy. He sat down at one of the chairs pulled away from the tables and held his head in his hands to try and calm down. Making an attempt at logical thinking, he tried to lay out what he knew in order. It appeared he was alone, the only person left in town. Something terrible must have happened and everyone either left, or just blinked out of existence, and some creepy message was all that any radio or television played. He didn’t feel any better about the whole bloody situation after that.

 

The window nearest to him was open, blinds pulled sideways so sunlight streamed into the pub. Looking out it, he still saw no one, only the green grass at the back of the pub, and the clear blue sky above him. Looking further into the distance, it was then that he noticed something odd. A small orange light was hovering above the street around the back of the pub, bobbing back and forth like it was being blown about by the wind. Not believing what he was seeing, he rubbed at his eyes and looked again, and it remained where it was, swaying about in the breeze. It crackled slightly as it moved, like bits of it were breaking off and reattaching themselves, forming a blurry sphere. Suddenly standing up quite quickly, he remained where he was, feet planted unmoving for a moment, unsure of what to do. He desperately wanted to see the object closer, hoping it helped explain what was going on, but what if it was dangerous? The voice on the radio message echoed in his head, ‘ _Do not interact with anything you see, people included’_ and he assumed this is what they’d meant by anything. Every instinct in his was pulling him home, back behind his locked doors where he figured he was as safe as he could get, and yet something inside him told him to go to the light.

 

Ignoring his better judgment, he exited the pub and briskly walked down the street, hurrying before he came to his senses and changed his mind. For a moment, all he could hear was the plastic slapping sound the soles of his house shoes made as he hurried down the asphalt, but as he grew closer to the… _thing…_ floating there, he could hear something. It sounded like wind through a hollow tube, an empty sort of whistling or echoing that made the hair on his neck stand. He could hear voices coming from it, faintly, but the were there. This one was distinctly female, but he was unable to make out the words, only sounds and whistles and an electric humming. It was quite bright, the light, glowing orange and sparking as he stood in front of it, staring. He felt like a fly drawn to a lamp, unable to take his eyes off it as it shifted and ebbed, changing shape.

 

Feeling particularly brave in that moment, he slowly lifted an arm towards it, trying to touch it. The second his finger grazed it, two things happened: He felt a small jolt, like an electric shock coursing it’s way through his muscles. It didn’t hurt, but it surprised him slightly. Everything around him instantly grew bright, colours saturating and then just as quickly going dim, greyscale washing it’s way across the land, and his eyes slammed shut. A flash of memories that weren’t his own flickered automatically through his head like an old projector until they reached the end, and suddenly stopped. He saw a child, a young girl, running through a field. He saw her age quickly and suddenly she was about 12, sitting on her bed, crying her eyes out. Again, she aged, this time she was a teenager in a car, leaning towards a figure in the driver’s seat. It continued until he saw an image of her as a grown woman, her body fading slightly and the images suddenly stopped.

 

Opening his eyes, he immediately looked up at the orange light, which had condensed into a tightly bound knot and quickly streaked upwards, through the clouds and disappeared into the sky. Panting heavily, he crouched down, trying simultaneously to catch his breath and figure out what the hell had just happened. Was that light a person, and how the hell did he see her entire life flash before his eyes? His head felt exceptionally unlike his own in that moment, and more like a roll of film that someone had double exposed images on.

 

Standing up, he turned to face the horizon, and saw that the sun had begun its plunge into the ground. Immediately deciding that he did not want to be alone outside as the night crept up on him, he ran down the street, past the pub with it’s doors still wide open, the empty post office and towards his house. Once inside, he locked the front door and leant against it, back damp with sweat from his hasty retreat.

 

Running a hand through his errant waves of greying hair, he closed his eyes and sunk to the floor, legs collapsing from under him. He tried to rationalize what had just happened, trying his hardest to convince himself it was nothing more than a bad dream or a hallucination from eating something off, it had to be. There was no logical explanation for an entire town disappearing without a trace and floating balls of memories hovering around the city. He would turn the television on tomorrow morning and be greeted with someone telling him it was a giant joke and all was back to normal, he decided with a panicked determination.

 

Legs starting to cramp from running so far and currently being crumpled under him, he stood and headed towards his bedroom. What he needed was two paracetamol and a decent nights sleep, and everything would be back to normal in the morning. He hoped.


End file.
